Perhaps having a little escapism isn’t a bad thing, even in a time of crisis. Looking on Facebook especially over the last few days I’ve seen a lot of friends going through hardships right now with the fires in Southern California. I know the news isn’t good in many cases in terms of property loss. Our hearts go out to the folks affected.

Since sometimes less is better, I’m keeping the post simple tonight, and sharing a cartoon you particular folks probably know pretty well: Parrotville Post Office, a Cinecolor Van Beuren Cartoon from 1935, directed byTom Palmer (with Burt Gillett taking the main credit).

The three Parrotville shorts made by Van Beuren were films I didn’t grow up with at all, but as I met a lot of cartoon folks — fans, animators, film collectors— I found that many of the generation just slightly older than me saw these film multiple times on TV as kids. The first of the series I saw was this one, in a pretty beat up black and white print I got along with a lot of other pretty beat up black and white cartoons. Official Films made a lot of prints of these particular shorts in black and white, and Commonwealth had made Cinecolor prints in the 40s into the 50s.

Of the series, Parrotville Old Folks is my own favorite, but I like a lot of things about this short as well. I think it has one of the best soundtracks of any of the series, well-timed to the animation and with enjoyable little themes throughout, just a great track. The character design on the bad guy is one of my favorites in any of the Rainbow Parades, and the animation (some by Bill Littlejohn) is beautiful and fill of great poses. It’s also nice to hear the track in a little better quality, from this 35mm Cinecolor print.

So, in the spirit of keeping things simple and having a little cartoon break, here’s Parrotville Post Office. We cleaned this one up a handful of years back for the Rainbow Parades volume 1 blu-ray set.

Wishing the best to everyone this week, and see you here next week too!